Some copies indeed, and one in particular, (penis R. Pria Knight, F.R.S.) have it "thrice." This, however, on a careful collation with all the best MSS. and some very fair black-letter editions, has been most satisfactorily disproved: it has crept into the old versions, either from the well-known predilection for the _trine_ number; or, from the writer's having composed the work during Matthew's second Mayoralty, when, as it appears from some old papers in the Tower, he, as well as many of his zealous friends, had a notion that he would have been again elected to the dignified office which he had for two successive years filled so satisfactorily--to himself. That such a re-election would have delighted him, nobody can doubt, who is aware of the fact of his being so anxious to discharge correctly the duties of his great office, that he practised the part,--or, as it is in one account quaintly phrased, _played at Lord Mayor_,--for some time before he had attained the station; and for many years after he had passed the chair, evinced his gratitude by keeping up the same laudable practice. An old account of one of his private dinners states, that even to the day of his death, when he was at home, he sat in state at the head of his table, with his loving spouse beside him, and his chief guest, if it were but the deputy of the ward, upon his right, while the other members of his family were ranged as regularly in order as if they had been at the Easter dinner in the Mansion House. As it affects Mr. Whittington's character, the little variation between twice and thrice is at present quite immaterial. He that deserved to be twice Lord Mayor could hardly have been additionally ennobled by having been so three or more times; and, considering that the statements rest on public rumour, and, perhaps, the partiality of friends, of which not one-half is generally true, it seems a not unfair proportion to believe two-thirds. But, proud as Matthew naturally was at his double elevation, for he had sitten on the two forks of the civic Parnassus, it seems that in a subsequent period of his life he began to grow weary of his legitimate honours, and bursting from that civic chrysalis, the alderman's gown, strove to soar by gaudier flights into what it may be imagined he deemed better company. But the City Icarus tried his wings, there is reason to suppose, in a temperature somewhat too glowing; and if it were not for that indulgent principle of modern biography to which I have alluded, of saying nothing disagreeable either of the living or dead, I might be able to show that Matthew had earned the detestation of some, the ridicule of others, and the contempt of all, and forfeited much of that grave respect which aldermen are heirs to, by presuming to meddle with things the which he could of no possibility understand.